The free festival, which began in 1989, is a three-day celebration of authors, writing and reading. Every author on the program takes part in a session, either through a solo reading or a panel discussion, followed by a book signing in the festival’s Author Signing Colonnade.

Jane Landers, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History and director of the Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies project
Book: Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions
• Oct. 13, 1:30–3 p.m., Legislative Plaza, Room 16
“Histories of Freedom: People and Politics in the Atlantic World” with Madison Smartt Bell and Laurent Dubois

Charlotte Pierce-Baker, professor of women’s and gender studies and English
Book: This Fragile Life: A Mother’s Story of a Bipolar Son
• Oct. 13, 4–5 p.m., Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room

Rick Hilles, assistant professor of English
Book: A Map of the Lost World
• Oct. 14, 1–2 p.m., Nashville Public Library, Special Collections Room
“The Art to Being and Having Been: Salient Voices in Modern Poetry” with Ellen Watson

Other Vanderbilt participants include:

Celia Walker, director of special projects for Vanderbilt Libraries
Project: Shades of Gray and Blue educational website on the art and material culture of Civil War Tennessee
•Oct. 14, 2–3 p.m., Legislative Plaza, Room 30
“By Means of Matter: Capturing Community Through Art” with Susan W. Knowles and Art Shiver

Kat Zhang, senior in the College of Arts and Science and English major
Book: What’s Left of Me
•Oct. 14, 2:30–4 p.m., Nashville Public Library, Conf. Room IA
“Reconstructing Order: YA Dystopian Novels” with Julianna Baggott and Jeff Hirsch